Newbie question about crappie on Ky and Barkley

Will crappie also go into bays to spawn that don't have a creek channel? Please excuse if i posted this in the wrong area.

yes they will...they will also spawn along the main lake bank if there is some feature there that provides the right conditions. I have done very little good going to far back in the coves or creek arms for years now. The fish just seem to want to use the first available banks from the channels. Working back in the bays but stopping short of using the very back in most cases. Sometimes you just have to find some fish no one has tapped. I have sit and watched 10 boats or more work over a spot in a span of just a few hours. With that kind of pressure you have to go huntin' for some untapped water at times. It does happen sometimes where you just hit it right and happen to be there on just the right day and wail em on a high pressure spot. Everyone who has been fishing it before was just to early,or another wave of fish has came in to replace those caught .

That's kind of a tuff question. I personally don't know of ANY cove/bay on either lake that doesn't have a creek running into it somewhere, be it large or small. Some have more defined creek channels than others though. They all have silted in some over the years. Some more than others.

That's a good question. So's this one: Wil my wife tell me I'm right in an argument this year? Neither question has a good solid answer. Like doggone said, we just need to go out, find new areas and remember some old ones, then hope for the best and be happy at the end of the day.

I made the assumption he was referring to the major creek arms. The major migration routes. I will also add that it is much tougher to find crappie out of the major creek arms if they are not out near the channels.Bluegill and Redear beds,much easier to find in the smaller " creek arm coves" then crappie. At least that has been my experience. Might fish several coves which do not have named creeks but have the natural drainages or " dry creeks" as they are sometimes referred to when it was still dry land ,and find bluegill or other species but not crappie. The crappie do have a propensity to use arms that had creeks that held water or were actually running the majority of the time. So typically if your not in one of the largest or "major" creek arms check the the arms that have the smaller creeks that have or had flow when it is wet enough.

It is sort of like envisioning it before it was a Lake. If you would walk through the woods, where could you fish before it was flooded? On natural lakes and non flood control impoundments I catch a lot of fish in coves that have only drainages or non named creeks. The reservoirs where an actual large river was impounded have more of a tendency for the fish to use the old river and creeks sort of like a tree and its branches. The trunk,the main branches,then the smaller branches.